For those who want the truth

Notice on updated Dragon Age: The Veilguard review

Unfortunately Steam has locked my review while I was still tinkering. Below is a variant I would likely have finalized:

Dragon Age: The Veilguard will not likely go down in history as one of the biggest gaming blunders of all time, rather it definitely will. And not for why you might think.

They had the opportunity to create a platform where they set the stage for a whole new trilogy. Where they not only tell the world that Dragon Age was back, but also rope in a whole new era of fans for yet another decade. They had the opportunity to show we could trust Mass Effect to be in good hands, but they made those of us on the fence doubt. They had the opportunity to make us think EA had the ability to once again show its stripes as a gaming legend, but only revealed EA’s apparent desire to not let Ubisoft get away unchallenged for worst company of the year.

The Veilguard, of which I will leave the term “Dragon Age” out of the title out of respect for the recently deceased, explodes onto the scene in vibrant purple form bringing an air of light-hearted horror we have become so familiar with over the last decade through cinema and entertainment. Displaying an acceptably detailed character creator, Bioware wasn’t satisfied by allowing players to select from Male or Female; Bioware needed to not only restrict unique dialogue behind certain selections, which is perfectly in tune with their past games, but they needed to restrict it behind real-world divisive, mental, and political selections.

With as much focus there is on the freedom of the player to build the character their own way, surely, they incorporated that into choices and development? No. And the fact they didn’t shows even more it was to push an agenda rather than to add depth to the world. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent there is no story for the player to tell and he/she is relegated to being a party to a Visual Novel, rather than an RPG. Your choices don’t matter. Regardless of what you do, short of ignoring your companions completely, it all ends the same way.

If they spent such little time on the story, surely, they put some time into the combat and gameplay over the course of 10 years, right? No. This is where I get controversial over the actual fans of the series. Action Combat is not a bad direction for this game. In fact, I would argue it to be necessary. Dragon Age: Inquisition is about as close to the original, in this respect, that the masses today would be willing to go on a new game purchase. The operationality you get from Origins just would not bring the blockbuster appeal a game of this caliber needs to for considerations of success. I believe action combat, done right, is a great direction to go. I think they could have done it better, working in ally control and a tactical system, but I know it is, for a fact, not the reason this game dropped the ball. The movement and action in this game is fine, it just lacks development and expansiveness which leads to it being repetitive.

How about the classes? They are uninspired. Every class plays the same on a basic level. Sure, the skill tree lets you refine each of the 9 classes (three each), but they don't carry the same thrill as previous entries. This harkens back to the point I made about action combat as well. The classes systemically suffer due to the lack of dedication to the Action Combat system. The melee wizard doesn’t need the default attack system being ranged. Allow class overlap, making those 9 classes into possibly hundreds of variations. Let the skills and classes be as fluid as the combat you are attempting to encourage.

What about missions and in-between? Missions are very similar to each other in play, separated by flavor. In-between? It gets bad here as, like the Inquisition round table, it feels like an "around the water-cooler" session. Unfortunately, Inquisition derived player interaction and added to the game, along with dialogue. The Veilguard just feels like a Sunday afternoon brunch.

What are the positives? The movement and gameplay are repetitive, yes, but has a great base. Character customization is almost perfect, aside from some sliders being effectively useless. And the hair? This is possibly the best hair in a video game ever, not just in the individuality, but the flow. Kudos to the person who made that happen. Promote them.

To avoid prattling on forever:

If this game were just “The Veilguard” in a completely unrelated IP, it may have found moderate success.

The use of the IP itself was done only to sell the wasted potential to the masses with the ideology of the love of the genre being enough to ignore any glaring shortcomings. It also raised the expectations to levels they clearly were unable to meet. In reality, what they did through their feigned ignorance or, more realistically, their own malice, is they have supplanted an agenda in place of an experience and sacrificed potentially billions of dollars in the process. The sacrifice was accidental, the death was on purpose.

Even if you eliminate the blatant bias in messaging, the game is forced to stand on its own merits and it fails on that front almost as completely. It is boring, uninspired, and leaves no lasting impact on itself or the player. Replayability is almost non-existent. It is a game that would befit a $45 price tag and no IP attached to it. In fact, at $45, I would say it is a pretty good standalone title.

Either way, two sets of people were involved in the fundamental failures of this title; the ones who made this game, (not necessarily mechanically and in art design as, outside of the horrid team control menu in combat it is quite pretty and fun to use at a base level), and the ones that signed off on it. Metaphorical heads will roll at some point over this title because, regardless of who you are, to not admit it falls short of what it should have accomplished by a long shot is to host an apocalyptic level of ignorance.


I hope the executives responsible for the Bioware's heads of staff, as well as those responsible for the game's oversight are the ones to be put out on the curb because, if they wipe their hands clean and fail to learn a lesson, Commander Shepard will depart the world in a similar light.